


STRQ Before RWBY

by SeveralSmallHedgehogs



Category: RWBY
Genre: Backstory, Character Death, Depression, F/M, Team STRQ - Freeform, alcohol mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:14:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7761043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeveralSmallHedgehogs/pseuds/SeveralSmallHedgehogs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Qrow's POV, at Beacon and afterward. Sometimes life just happens, the team falls apart before you know it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	STRQ Before RWBY

**Author's Note:**

> Haha what's a title. What's a summary. The weird formatting was definitely totally intentional. Again, no beta, so feel free to point out grammatical errors and stuff that doesn't follow.
> 
> It just kind of skips through time to various important moments. This is just one of the possibilities I've come up with for STRQ's backstory. I might post others as I write them out...
> 
> Please tell me I'm not the only one who still reads their team name as 'stork' instead of 'stark'  
> ____________________________

          The launch pad had more force than Qrow had expected.

          It wasn’t like he was totally unprepared for the initiation at Beacon. As far as he knew, the process had been the same for decades, if not longer. He’d heard some older students talk about finding the artifacts in the forest, so he’d already known what was coming when a professor herded the new students up onto the cliff above the forest.

          But he had to admit, he’d expected to be climbing down the cliff to get to the forest. He hadn’t expected to get catapulted into the sky.

          He spun in midair so he wasn’t falling headfirst, and searched for a landing spot. A dark shape out of the corner of his eye- his sister, Raven- dropped down below the tree line. Qrow spotted a good tree and hooked his scythe around a limb- the momentum took him in a loop around the branch before he swung off and landed feet-first on the ground. He straightened and brushed himself off, glancing around.

          “Oh, hey!” said somebody at his back.

          Qrow turned. Standing a few paces away was that blond guy who’d been cracking jokes at the entrance ceremony; Taiyang. Qrow resisted the urge to sigh. Taiyang hadn’t seemed like the best fighter, but at least he was someone Qrow might get along with.

 

 

          “Summer Rose. Taiyang Xiao Long. Raven Branwen. Qrow Branwen.” Ozpin recited their names as their pictures rearranged themselves on the huge screen overhead. “The four of you retrieved the White Knight pieces. From this day forward you will work together as Team STRQ, led by Summer Rose.”

  
             Qrow tilted his head forward to peer down the line at Summer. Raven, her partner, was smiling and patting her shoulder while the girl in the white hood blinked like a thunderstruck deer. Taiyang clapped her on the back, grinning. “Don’t let us down, Leader.”

 

 

          Team STRQ’s fourth mission took them outside of Vale, to one of the abandoned cities outside the walls.

          They’d made camp high up in a building, where the Grimm couldn’t get to them as easily. Qrow was sitting in a window, his eyes sweeping the ruined streets for any sign of Grimm activity. Since Raven and Taiyang were out somewhere, it had fallen to him to be lookout.

         Raven kept leaving with Taiyang during missions- patrols, scouting, that kind of thing. Anything so it was just the two of them. Qrow knew why: once his sister took a liking to a guy, she’d chase him relentlessly until he noticed her- no matter how thick his skull was. Even Taiyang had to fall for her sometime. They always did. And then Raven would get bored and dump him, and Taiyang would sulk for a while, and then he’d get over it. And Raven would find a new guy to flirt with. The cycle continued.

         “Are you all right?”

         Qrow jumped. Summer stood behind him, her hands clasped behind her back. She kept doing that- sneaking up on people. Not because she was trying to startle them, but because her natural quiet and calm kept her teammates from noticing her.

          “I’m fine,” Qrow told her, pushing his hair back out of his face. “Just keeping watch.”

          Summer took a seat next to him, pulling her hood down. “You’re worried.”

          “What? No, I’m not.”

          “Yes, you are.” Summer tilted her head. “You’re worried about Taiyang.”

          He eyed her in askance. “And how would _you_ know that?”

          “Because I know you,” she replied. After a pause, she sighed and went on. “And because I am, too. You know Raven better than I do- I’m sure you see what she’s doing. You’re worried that she’s going to hurt Taiyang, and that he’s not going to get better. So, what do you think we should do?”

          Qrow glanced at her. “Well, we could follow their example,” he suggested, trying for a joke.

She bumped his shoulder with hers. “I’m serious, Qrow.”

          “Well, there’s not really much _we_ can do,” he said. “Raven does this a lot. I don’t bother trying to get her to stop. It’s usually fine in the end. She doesn’t really mean any harm- she’s just having fun.”

          Summer hummed thoughtfully, leaning back on her hands. Qrow almost did the same, but stopped himself just in time. There was a long, long, silence before she asked, “Do you?”

          Qrow, pulled from other thoughts, blinked. “Do I what?”

          “Do you do what she does?”

          “No,” he said. “I mean, I, I haven’t… really…”

  
          Summer sat up. “You’ve never actually had a girlfriend, have you? You keep flirting with every girl you meet, and…” She trailed off, staring at him, her mouth hanging open.

          Qrow crossed his arms and refused to reply, and then Summer started to laugh. If it had been anyone else, he would’ve been irritated.  He hated being laughed at. But somehow, when it was Summer, the laughter wasn’t jeering. Summer’s laugh was so infectious he almost joined in.

          They stayed there, sitting in the window, for a long time. Hours, probably. Summer swung her feet and smiled out at the landscape. Qrow made jokes, trying to make her laugh again, but his flailing attempts at humor seemed funnier to her than the jokes themselves.

          As the days turned into weeks, Qrow started to look forward to those times when Raven and Taiyang were off scouting somewhere, and he and Summer could just sit and talk. Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years.

          Team STRQ graduated from Beacon. Raven and Taiyang were still dating, which threw Qrow for a loop- they’d been together for three years now. It was starting to look like his sister might actually be settling down.

          Qrow, meanwhile, never did work up the nerve to ask Summer out for coffee.

          Then Raven got pregnant. Taiyang was ecstatic- he was the kind of guy who got excited about everything. Snow, dogs, children, it didn’t matter- he liked to be happy about things. Being a father? He couldn’t wait.

          And then everything went to hell after Raven disappeared.

          Her teammates spent weeks looking for her. Months. Summer helped Taiyang care for his newborn- a little blond girl named Yang. Qrow left Vale to search, and hardly ever bothered to contact either of them. So it shouldn’t have been such a surprise when, a little more than a year later, he suddenly got word that Summer, too, was expecting a child.

          Qrow returned to Vale in time to meet Summer’s new daughter- a tiny baby girl with her mother’s black hair and silver eyes. Taiyang sat on the floor across the hospital room with the baby so that Yang- only two years old at the time- could say hello to her.

          Leaving Taiyang with his daughters, Qrow stood awkwardly at Summer’s bedside. “She’s cute,” he said at last. “What did you name her?”

          “Ruby,” Summer replied, smiling at Taiyang across the room. He was making faces at Yang to get her to laugh.

          “Oh,” Qrow said, for some reason unable to look Summer in the eye. Instead he lowered his eyes to the linoleum tiles on the floor.

          Summer looked up and studied him, and he knew that she saw right through him. She knew what he was thinking. “You never said anything,” she told him quietly. “Or did anything. And you were gone so long. You never even called. And Taiyang…” she trailed off, smiling at Taiyang and his daughters. “Taiyang is just…”

          Qrow kept his eyes down. “I know.”

          There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.

 

          Soon Summer was up and about again, kissing Ruby and Yang on their noses before she headed out for missions. Qrow got an offer from Ozpin about a job at Beacon, but somehow, settling down in Vale felt like abandoning his sister. He had to keep searching for her. Every day it seemed more and more hopeless, though- he’d follow a rumor to a town, and then discover she’d left only an hour earlier. It was like chasing the wind.

          Then he got the letter from Taiyang. Summer had gone out on a mission, and she hadn’t come back. It had been two weeks since her family had last heard from her.

          Qrow left off his search to look for Summer.

          He never found her.

          All he found was a ripped, bloodstained white hood in the middle of a forest, surrounded by Beowolf tracks and bullet holes.

 

          By the time Qrow returned to Vale, Taiyang had shut down completely. Qrow did his best to take care of Ruby and Yang, and to try to keep his friend alive. Taiyang didn’t seem interested, though- he wouldn’t even get out of bed. It was all Qrow could do just getting him to eat. That was around the time Qrow started drinking, but he was careful never to be so sloshed all the time that he couldn’t take care of the girls.

          Then, one day when Qrow checked in on the family, he found that Ruby and Yang were gone. Taiyang hadn’t noticed them leave. The group picture of Team STRQ was missing from his dresser drawer.

          Qrow tracked Yang and Ruby to the woods and only just arrived in time to kill the Grimm they’d drawn. They weren’t hurt, although it was a scare he’d never forget. “Don’t you _ever_ do that again,” he told Yang, kneeling in front of her. “What would we do if we lost you, too?”

          The little girl was silent for a moment, frowning at the ground. Then she looked up. “Uncle Qrow… who is this?” She showed him the group picture of Team STRQ. It was the one that each of them had had a copy of; Qrow had his sword resting on one shoulder, and Raven stood in the front with one hand on her weapon. Tayiang and Summer were leaning against a tree in the back. Out of everyone in the picture, Qrow was the only one who wasn’t smiling.

          “That’s me and my team from Beacon,” Qrow told her.

          “But who’s this?” She pointed to Raven. Of course- she would be the only one Yang wouldn’t recognize. “She looks so much like me. And Dad told me about someone named Raven- is she Raven?”

          Qrow closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. Summer was dead, had been killed only a few months ago, and Taiyang was already pining over Raven again? Or had he ever stopped?

“Yeah. She’s my sister,” he told Yang, trying to keep his voice level.

          “Why haven’t I met her?” Yang demanded. Nearby, Ruby woke up and huddled in the wagon, looking scared and confused when she realized she wasn’t where she had gone to sleep.

          “You _have_ met her,” Qrow said, walking over to Ruby and picking her up with one arm. She wrapped her little arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. “You just met her a long time ago.” He returned to Yang and took her hand. “Come on. We have to get out of here before we attract any more Grimm.”

          “But where is she?” Yang asked as Qrow started to lead her back toward the city. “Dad said _Raven’s_ my mom, not Summer. Why isn’t she living with us?”

          “…She’s away on a mission,” Qrow replied after a moment.

          “When will she be back?”

          He sighed. “I wish I knew, kid.”

         “Why hasn’t she come back yet?” Yang wanted to know. “Did she die, like Summer?”

         Ruby’s arms tightened around Qrow’s neck. He glanced at the little girl. Her mouth was set in a straight line, and her eyes were watery, as if she was about to cry. “Yang, don’t say stuff like that,” he scolded, tugging gently on her arm. “Raven’s fine.”

          "So why hasn't she come back?" came that insistent little voice again.

          “Yang. I don’t know. I’m sorry I don’t have an answer for you.”

          The little girl’s eyes narrowed. Qrow bit his tongue to keep from telling her she looked exactly like Raven when she did that.

          “Come on,” he said again, picking up his pace. “It isn’t safe out here.”


End file.
